


dirt king, black crown.

by Spacedog



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1872 (Marvel), Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Western, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Masks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 18:42:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20661926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacedog/pseuds/Spacedog
Summary: The year is 1877. In the sun-baked town of Timely, Sheriff Steve Rogers is in mourning. It’s been five years since Bucky Barnes—Steve’s deputy, best friend, and lover—fell to his death. But as a masked vigilante gunman begins killing off ranchers and railroad executives at the edges of that dusty desert town, Steve is forced to reconsider his role as sheriff, long-held truths, and the very legitimacy of Timely itself.(or: a slightly different kind of cowboy AU.)





	dirt king, black crown.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tomorrow isn't that far (away)

In the dead of night, the desert is as dark as it is dangerous. Alone in the dust among the cactuses, Sheriff Steve Rogers wakes, his body drenched in a cold sweat, and his hands shaking like he held his own life in them. 

Chest heaving, Steve manages to come back to himself, if only barely. His mouth is bone-dry, and as Steve pulls himself out of his tent, he just barely manages to light his cigarette through trembling fingers. The familiar burn of smoke filling his lungs—a smoke he knows is killing him—is a salve, cold comfort in this canyon of death.

Deep down, Steve knows he shouldn’t be there, sleeping alone among the rattlesnakes and coyotes. He knows he shouldn’t be there, overlooking the edge of a long, long fall. Steve knows he shouldn’t be there.

But he has to be there. It’s the only way he can feel close to Bucky—especially given how quickly the anniversary of his death approaches. 

Five years. It’s been five years since Bucky Barnes, Steve’s deputy—his best friend, his lover—died, having fallen to his death into that very ravine.

Steve exhales, a cloud of smoke enveloping him. The sky above him is big—impossibly big—stars twinkling in an endless expanse of blackness. Sleep isn’t a possibility. Not anymore. Not when Bucky’s traumatic end echoes over the horizon. Not when he continues to linger, even five years later.

And so, Steve stays awake, waiting the sunrise out.

In the desert, thousands of miles and a lifetime away from the scrawny, sick kid he once was, Sheriff Steve Rogers chases the darkness away, one cigarette at a time, hoping fruitlessly that maybe, one day, the sun will rise and Bucky will be there for him, once more. 

**\---**

By the time Steve makes it back into town, the sun is high in the sky, and the world around him is in full swing, as if Bucky’s ghost doesn’t haunt; as if his unfinished life does not hang, lingering heavy and stifling in the dry, desert air.

“Morning, Sheriff,” says Deputy Wilson. Already at his post, bright and early. Sam was a lifesaver. “How was your trip?”

Steve sighs. He feels his chest practically collapse with it, and wonders, not for the first time that morning, if it’s too early for another cigarette. “Oh, you know.”

Wilson watches Steve, carefully. There’s concern in his eyes that Steve has become all-too familiar with, a pity that Steve hates being on the receiving end of. It’s a look that follows him through town, especially as the anniversary of Bucky’s death approaches. At least on Sam, Steve knows his Deputy—his _friend_—actually gives a shit. 

“Well, don’t let the sun shine too brightly out your ass, now,” Sam says eventually, just suppressing a sigh. “We’ve got another one.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. Now, that. _That’s _reason enough to get another cigarette out. He taps one out quickly, offering a second to Sam. “Another dead rancher?”

“Yep,” Sam says, taking the cigarette gratefully. “Same as last week’s.”

“Damn,” Steve says, lighting Sam’s cigarette, before lighting his own. God bless the tragedies of their little desert town, letting him chain-smoke his way through his grief. “Well. Let’s go check it out, then.”

**\---**

The ranch—just on the very edge of town—belonged to one Brock Rumlow. In life, Rumlow was what Steve could generously call a _piece of shit, _between the company he kept and the attitude he carried around the nasty way he looked at Sam. Steve Rogers would not waste his time mourning Brock Rumlow. But as Sheriff, Steve Rogers had a duty to find who killed him, even if this mysterious gunman just _happened _to do everyone a favor. 

Just with every other dead rancher, there was little for Steve or Sam to go on. No stray bullets, no forgotten affects, not even a stray footprint. It’s clearly a pattern—dead rancher, missing deed, and not a hair else out of place—but this time, at least, there is more: the word of Renata, the washer-woman Rumlow was paying a meager wage to keep his linens clean. Steve’s Spanish is passable, and Sam’s is only slightly better, but no amount of proficiency would help them piece together the identity of Rumlow’s assassin with any more accuracy—all Renata can tell them is that there was a masked man, dressed in black, riding a fearsome, all-black stallion. It doesn’t elucidate much. Like the masked assassin himself, the truth behind Rumlow’s killing remains obscured.

But it’s about as much a lead as Steve and Sam have ever gotten. 

**\---**

Once back in town, Steve and Sam part ways, making plans to meet at the one saloon at dusk. As Sam makes his way to do a little bit more digging on their case at hand, Steve travels back to the sheriff’s office, fully intending to let himself get lost in the petty, everyday duties of sheriff.

That goal only lasts about until he sees the mayor—the man who he succeeded—standing in front of his door. 

“Mayor Pierce,” Steve says, “It’s good to see you.” 

Pierce opens up his arms, beckoning Steve into a fatherly hug. “Come on, Steve. You know you can call me Alexander.”

Steve smiles, wearily. He knows he _can _call Pierce that, of course. But in his mind, Pierce is _always _his superior. And Pierce will _always _be Pierce. Even still, Steve settles into Pierce’s hug, halfheartedly. It’s like a concession. He never found them comfortable, for all that he’s sure Pierce meant to make them so. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. Good to see you, Alexander.”

“Good to see you too, kid. How’re you holding up?”

“I’m holding up,” is what Steve says in response. _It’s been five years since Bucky died, and I feel like I’m barely treading water, _goes unspoken, but understood. “Now, is this a social call, or are you coming by to ask something _of the sheriff?_”

“A little bit of both, kid,” says Pierce, sounding serious all of a sudden. “Let’s talk more about this inside.”

**\---**

Pierce takes up space in his old office like he still owns it. It makes Steve feel some sort of way, combined with the underlying churn of emotions that he’s been feeling, up in the lead-up to the anniversary of Bucky’s death. As Pierce settles into the seat across from his, Steve feels wet-behind-the-ears again, and not in a way that he’s happy about.

“So,” Pierce says, his presence commanding the room. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

Steve nods. He itches for a cigarette. He yearns for Bucky. “Shoot.”

“A man from the Zola Railway Company is coming to look at some land in a few days. Jasper Sitwell’s the name. Now, with all the talk of ranchers and oil barons being targets of vigilante ambushes ‘round these parts, Sitwell’s nervous,” Pierce says. He leans in, very close. Not as if he were sharing a secret, but as if he were speaking to a child. “The Zola Railway Company could do this town a whole lotta good, Steven.”

“It could,” Steve replies, level. He knows exactly where this conversation is going. He knows exactly what he will be asked to do.

He braces himself for it, anyway.

“You’re the sharpest shooter I know, Steve. You’ve taken down worse than a rogue cowboy. And because of that, you’re the only man I can trust to escort Sitwell to where he needs to go.”

It’s couched in a request, but Steve isn’t fool enough to think that he has a choice in the matter. A personal request from the mayor—from the former sheriff, the man who he worked under—is never _just _a request. It’s a command, an order to be executed by Steve and all the force of the law he has jurisdiction over. It isn’t that Steve _might _escort Sitwell. Steve is _going _to escort Sitwell.

No matter how much Steve’s rebellious soul screams for refusal.

Now, it’s not that Steve doesn’t want to escort Sitwell because he’s afraid. It’s not even because he’s uncertain. But because there’s something about escorting a railroad company bigwig that seems unusual and unseemly to Steve. Deep in his gut, Steve _knows _there is something very, very wrong about what he is being asked to do.

But it doesn’t matter how Steve feels. Not really. Not now. Not when he owes Pierce so much, especially after Bucky’s death. So, Steve Rogers, on the eve of his lover’s death-anniversary, does something that he’s sure Bucky would recognize.

Steve Rogers, sheriff of Timely, simply nods, and gives Pierce those words that feel leaden on his tongue: 

“Yes, sir.”

**\---**

“Afternoon, Sheriff. Deputy Wilson,” says Natasha Romanov, owner and sole barkeep of the Black Widow saloon, and Steve’s oldest, closest friend left alive. She punctuates Wilson’s name with a little smirk, about as subtle as a stampede. “Hard day?”

Steve sends Natasha a smile, world-weary as he always is, but genuine all the same. “When’s it not?”

“Good question. Damn good question,” she says with a hum. Steve and Sam take their regular seats at the end of the bar. Before they’ve even got the chance to really settle in, Natasha hands them a couple shots of whiskey, which they both down silently—Sam, with his usual energetic shudder, and Steve, with a heaviness that echoes the yawning emptiness of the lonely desert night before, a heaviness that comes with missing half one’s soul.

So, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing Natasha hasn’t seen before. From the way she eyes Steve, from the way her knowing gaze lingers, it's clear: she's danced this dance before.

“So, hey. I heard there was another murder,” says Natasha, low.

Steve looks up at her, a little coy. He knows he shouldn’t be sharing details with her. Not really. But he _also _knows that if anyone can keep a secret in their little desert town, it’s her. “Oh, did you, now?”

“Don’t get sweet with me, Rogers,” Natasha says, pointedly refilling Steve’s glass.

“Aw, Nat, me getting sweet on you? Come on. I care too much about you to subject you to that,” Steve says, smirking up at Natasha. She ignores it, though, leaning forward, conspiratorially. 

“Come on, Sheriff,” she says, dropping her voice low. As if keeping a secret was possible in the only saloon in town. “I want details.”

Steve sighs, throwing back his whiskey with nary a grimace. It goes down smooth, but the grimace he doesn’t bother hiding isn’t because of the whiskey. Not at all. “One shot. Straight between the eyes. Same as the last few dead ranchers we’ve seen. Deed to the land’s gone, too.”

“Any witnesses this time?” she asks.

“Old washer-woman,” Steve replies, “Said she saw someone riding off just after Rumlow was shot.”

“Not that it was much help,” Sam says, chiming in. “Got nothing substantial other than she saw a masked man with a rifle riding off on a big black horse.”

Natasha frowns, chewing her lower lip in a way that makes Steve thinks she knows something. “A masked man with a rifle riding a black horse. Hmm. Washer-woman say anything else?”

“Just that the horse was big,” Steve says, tracing the rim of his glass with his finger. “Must’ve been pretty big, for her to remember that, of all things.”

“Mm,” Natasha says, with a hum. The cogs in her mind are turning, Steve can see it. But he doesn’t have the faintest clue where they’ll take the three of them. “And you say there were no other shots?”

“Nope. No other bullets, no other bullet wounds. Not even a scratch on the guy. Just the one shot, straight between the eyes.”

“Whoever it was,” Sam says, “He was a damn good shot.” 

Natasha is silent for a moment, looking deadly-serious in the dim light of the saloon. Something seems to have come to her, and whatever it must have been must not be good news. With a sigh as heavy as the smoky air around them, Natasha grabs a clean glass, pouring a little bit of whiskey for herself. “I think I know who you’re looking for.”

Steve rights his shoulders, his entire body going alert. “Nat, you’d better not be shitting us.” 

“I’m not,” she says, throwing back her drink like an old pro. “Big, black horse, one-shot kills—I can’t say for certain who it is, but I have my suspicions.”

“Well?” Sam asks. Natasha sighs, and for a moment, she looks like she regrets even bringing it up. 

“They call him the Winter Soldier. He’s a hired gun. And the best damn shot west of the Mississippi. Probably west of the Atlantic, too. Stronger than an iron hoof and fast as a whip.”

“Why do they call him the Winter Soldier?” Sam asks. 

“Well, once you’re in his crosshairs, you’re well as gone. He’s unstoppable. Come spring, summer, fall, winter? He’ll get you. It’s just a matter of time,” Natasha says, pouring another shot for herself. “Some say he’s a demon. Some say he’s a ghost. All I know is he’s not someone you wanna be messin’ with. And I got the scars to prove it.”

She pulls up her blouse, revealing a knotted mess of pink, puckered scarring. How she managed to survive the shot, Steve has no idea, but the resemblance to the shot dotting Rumlow’s forehead is uncanny. Just as quickly as she revealed herself, Natasha tucks her blouse back into her skirt, leaving the rest of the bar none the wiser. 

“Back in a past life, when I was a gun for hire, I was escorting a minor oil baron through the badlands. One minute, we’re crossing a river, making great time, the next minute, I’ve been shot through the stomach and I see a big man on a big, black horse, rifle trained on the oil baron.” 

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Thought you said he never misses a shot.”

“No. He doesn’t. He let me off with a warning,” Natasha says, her tone almost a laugh, though not quite. It’s too bitter to be a laugh, by miles. “Got the man I was supposed to be escorting, though. Same as ol’ Rumlow. One shot. Straight between the eyes.”

Sam, Steve notices, begins running his thumbs along the edge of the bar, tracing familiar knots in the wood grain. Steve never told Sam of Pierce’s request, but he must have seen Pierce leave, or heard rumors of someone important. _Something. _Because his anxiousness was far from Sam. That subtle anxiousness spoke to Sam putting two and two together. 

Natasha, though, simply continues on. “Most folks’ll call the Winter Soldier a ghost story. That he’s a tall tale made up to scare men who get too bold. But he’s real. And I wouldn’t want to be caught in his sights, that’s for damn sure.”

Steve shakes his head, taking out a cigarette and grinning around it. Like Natasha, Steve, too, is too bitter to be considered laughing. “Guess now’s a bad time to tell you that I’m gonna be escorting someone from the railroad company down to look at some land, huh?”

“Steve—” Natasha starts. 

“Natasha,” Steve replies, like the echo from a canyon.

“I’m not joking when I say he’s not someone I would want to fuck with,” she says, very, very seriously.

“And I’m not joking when I say I’m _doing _this,” Steve says, his tone just as deadly-serious as hers. 

Natasha shoots a pointed look at Sam, who shrugs. He’s taking the news fairly well, Steve thinks. That, or he’s just become numb to Steve’s actions in the year he’s been deputy sheriff.

“You know I damn well can’t stop the sheriff, even if I wanted to,” Sam says, equal parts resigned and ready. Steve squeezes his shoulder in solidarity, which earns a smile from Sam, his gap-toothed grin reassuring. Natasha, on the other hand, is unreadable, outside of her natural suspicion. She looks like she is searching Steve’s features for an answer, an out, a way to persuade him otherwise, but Steve is an unstoppable force when he’s put his mind to something, even if it’s something that he’s not fully comfortable with. Even if it’s something that requires that he makes compromises. And Natasha knows this. She knows that neither she nor Sam nor could stop him. She knows that no one on the planet could have ever stopped Steve, save for Bucky Barnes, rest his soul.

And so eventually, like a pocketknife, Natasha folds. 

“In that case,” she says with a sigh, “Let’s see what the ghost wants, cowboy.” 

**\---**

_What the ghost wants _becomes patently clear the moment they spot his midnight-black horse on the horizon.

The ghost—the Winter Soldier—is out for blood.

Steve spots the Soldier first, from his position riding alongside Sitwell’s wagon. Not that it helps. Not that he could have ever stopped him. Steve draws quickly, but the Winter Soldier draws quicker, an explosion of gunpowder and pain hitting Steve like dynamite. 

“Fuck!” Steve hisses, grabbing his arm. The bullet grazed him, just shallow enough to leave him unharmed, but deep enough to leave a scar. Everything happens very quickly after that. 

There’s no time to stop to treat his arm, so Steve puts pressure on the wound, wrapping it up with a bandanna and gritting his teeth through the pain. Temporarily distracted by his own pain, Steve’s somehow lost eyes on the Soldier. Worse, the gunshot spooked the horses pulling Sitwell’s wagon, sending the carriage and its passengers careening wildly as Sam struggles to regain control.

In the chaos, in their collective efforts to find the masked gunman and bring order back to their transport mission, Steve, Sam, and Natasha—for the briefest of moments—forget the core of their mission: to protect Sitwell. And it is in that moment, that split-second of forgetting, that the Soldier takes his shot.

A bang rings out through the canyon, and before any of them even see Sitwell slumped over, dead, all three know what happened.

And Steve—unstoppable force as he is—finds a new mission. 

“Sam. You and Natasha take care of this,” Steve growls, eyes narrowing to the black-clad figure quickly making its way through the canyon they are in. “I’m going after the ghost.”

“Steve!” Sam yells, but Steve doesn’t stop. Fast as his horse can take him, he rides, thundering after the Winter Soldier like his own damn life depends on it.

They ride, Steve in quick pursuit of the Soldier, traversing the winding passages and crumbling crags of the canyon. The Soldier is quick, but Steve is relentless, and, for whatever reason, the Soldier does not shoot back when shot at, no matter how close Steve’s shots seem to get to get. Eventually, Steve manages to hit the Soldier’s horse, sending him tumbling, but not slowing down.

“Fuck!” the Soldier yells as he rolls, his voice muffled beneath the mask. Steve, fully-intent on taking the man in alive, dismounts, hitting the ground in a sprint as he does.

The Soldier does not back down when Steve approaches him, nor does he try to run when Steve holsters his gun and takes a fighting stance. It’s a boxer’s stance, the very same stance that Bucky Barnes taught him, all those years ago in New York City. 

“You don’t wanna do that, Sheriff,” growls the Winter Soldier, but Steve has never backed down from a fight. Not back in Brooklyn, not when he was training, and sure as hell not now. When it is clear that Steve will not back down, the Soldier sighs, assuming a similar stance—one that Steve, even in his adrenaline-fueled rage, should have recognized.

As they tussle, Steve finds himself beyond evenly-matched. Steve throws the first punch, but the Soldier manages to knock Steve down, sweeping his legs in a way that should have been a red flag in Steve’s mind. Just like Natasha promised, the Soldier is strong, he’s fast, and he’s got more than a couple tricks up his sleeve. But Steve was a born brawler, even before he’d moved West. Before they know it, they’re on the ground, fighting dirtier than an early-morning bar fight. There are elbows thrown and cheap shots as they scrap in the clay-colored dust. Which means it’s only a matter of time before the mask falls off.

But for Steve, the reveal—the unveiling of the Winter Soldier—quickly becomes the cheapest shot of them all. 

Because in front of him, alive as he was five years ago, is Bucky Barnes. Unmistakably, undoubtedly, impossibly, in front of Steve, with Sitwell’s blood on his hands, is the man that Steve had been mourning for five long, lonely years. 

And all Steve can manage, the only word he seems to remember, is the name:

“—Bucky?”

For a moment, the whole world—the sun in the sky, the winds blowing through the canyon, the heartbeat thrumming in Steve’s chest—do not matter. All that matters is Bucky, alive and in front of Steve, after five long, lonely years. Against his better instincts, Steve leans in, lips parted ever-slightly, as if in anticipation for a kiss. Bucky, too, leans up towards Steve, his blue, blue eyes trained on Steve’s own, and they approach each other, slowly, gently, tenderly—

When suddenly, Bucky slams his head up, headbutting Steve in the face.

And then, just as quickly as Steve’s world changed, everything goes black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is a gift from me to fandom, for my birthday. the art is inspired by my burgeoning obsession with [my gay canadian masked cowboy daddy, orville peck](https://orvillepeck.bandcamp.com/album/pony), and the art that [em made me for my birthday](https://twitter.com/softestbuck/status/1173228862005743617) (which she may have given me hints about at the beginning of the month). as such, i know this is going to be historically-inaccurate. i'm fully-aware of that. that's an executive decision i made. but i hope y'all will enjoy it, anyway. 
> 
> title is from [orville peck's "big sky."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd_uz5rVO2I) originally, i wanted to title this fic, ["pull the leather / tug the rosary on it" (from his "buffalo run")](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VlPFpE5fvo), but i thought that, even for me, that was a bit excessive. i might still use that line, but, you know. somewhere else. 
> 
> this chapter, and i imagine the next, were not beta-read, and will be edited in the near-future for clarity and grammar. as such, i hope that y'all will bear with the minor mistakes i've made in this. thank you for the patience and care, all. <3
> 
> next up: head on, ride.


End file.
